


Cassandra, Keep It Down

by SomeEnchantedEve



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Non-Graphic Violence, Prophecy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-22
Updated: 2013-07-22
Packaged: 2017-12-20 23:27:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/893139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomeEnchantedEve/pseuds/SomeEnchantedEve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Catelyn dreams in red, and she hates those dreams more than any other. </p><p>(Written for the <a href="http://got-exchange.livejournal.com">GoT Exchange</a>.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cassandra, Keep It Down

**Author's Note:**

> Written for dallirious for the GoT Exchange. The title comes from 'Cassandra' by Emmy the Great. As always, much thanks to my beta reader Alex (fields195) for her patience and diligence in making corrections so that this piece is as clean as it could be!

There are times when Catelyn dreams in red, and she hates those dreams more than any other. 

When she is nine, she dreams of her mother, the Lady Minisa, dancing in the hall of Riverrun in a fine red gown. Catelyn has always loved to watch her parents dance together at feasts, the perfect lord and lady presiding over their Riverlands court, but in her dream, her mother dances alone. Mother’s gown swirls about her ankles, and the hem dribbles over her feet like liquid. She is beautiful but oblivious to her daughter’s presence, and there is a certainty in Catelyn’s stomach that she shall never reach her mother, even if she were to open her mouth and shout for her. 

When Catelyn wakes, the sheets are tangled all about her legs, and her belly cramps so that she cries out from the pain of it. She vaguely becomes aware of a dampness beneath her, and she dips her shaking fingers between her legs to find them dark with blood. Surprised, she cries out until her septa comes running to see what would cause her to make such an uncharacteristic fuss. After she lights a candle, the old woman gives her a knowing smile and tells her that it is nothing to fear, that she has merely flowered, that now she is a woman grown.

I had a dream,” she tells her septa, but she pays Catelyn no mind – she is too busy calling for one of Catelyn’s maids to change the bedding, to pull her soiled shift from her clammy body, to help her change into a clean, dry nightgown. 

She repeats herself after the septa has made her drink tea with a drop of milk of the poppy, even as she drowsily puts her head down upon her pillow. “I had a dream.” 

This time, the septa listens, but she dismisses her worries, smoothing Catelyn’s hair off her face. “Many girls do when they first bleed. It is no matter.” There is a touch of pride in her voice, as though this were another accomplishment due to her tutelage, like Catelyn’s tiny embroidery stitches or Lysa’s lute playing. “You are a bit young yet for your blood, but your father will start looking for a fine match for you now.” 

The idea of a match is enough to distract Catelyn, and she pushes the residual dread in her gut aside. _It is only pain from my moonblood,_ she tells herself, and as the more practical of the two Tully sisters, she does not truly believe otherwise. She goes to sleep with her cheek resting upon her hands, wondering about the sort of man she might marry. 

They bury her mother six moons later. They set her adrift in the river in a fine blue dress, with silver trouts threaded at her hem. But Catelyn will never forget the way the maids had rushed from her mother’s bedchamber, the blood-soaked linens dragging from their arms to brush the floor, leaving a sickly trail of red in their wake. 

\--

The next dream comes when she is six-and-ten, a young lady just on the cusp of womanhood, with marriage quickly rushing toward her. Autumn turns the leaves to rich red-gold, to deep auburn, and Petyr likes to hold them to her hair and compare the shades until she laughs and bats both his hand and the foliage away. The whisper of winter is upon the air, but even the thought of the cold she will find in the remote North is not enough to dampen the spirit of a young heart. And, if nothing else, they are all so very young that year. 

She dreams of those same leaves falling from the trees, rendering them barren and foreboding as they stretch towards the winter sky with thin, long fingers. The leaves tumble through the air, catch on the breeze, and land in the river. When they touch the water, the color runs from them as though it were paint, winding along the currents until the entire river turns a sickly shade of red. Catelyn stands and watches as it laps at the stones of the Water Gate, like a hungry predator come to swallow the castle, and it stains the hem of her gown even as she tries to draw it away. 

This dream she does not mention to her septa; she mentions it instead to Lysa, as they sit in the godswood working on their embroidery. Their septa would rather have them within the castle walls, but they had argued that soon the chill of winter would be upon them, and that they wished to spend the days outside. 

“That’s silly,” Lysa tells her, with all the matter-of-factness of a freshly bloomed maid of four-and-ten, so certain that she knows the way of the world. “The water is always blue, even for the Tullys.” She frowns down at her work, eyeing Catelyn’s own tiny stitches on the kerchief she is sewing with envy. 

“I know,” Catelyn answers distractedly, turning the last red dream over in her head. She does not tell Lysa about the first one, the one with their mother; Lysa had been so young when their mother had died, and it would do no good to dredge up old heartaches. Besides, Lysa has always been the one prone to strange fancies, to daydreams and fantastical imagining. Catelyn is far more practical, and if her sister brushes these strange images aside, Catelyn should do so as well. Yet somehow, the memory of the first dream makes Catelyn feel strangely culpable, though she knows very well the true reason for their mother’s death had been the peril of chlldbed. The odd guilt that plagues her is all the more reason to keep her troubles to herself. 

Instead of arguing further, she bends her head over her work, snapping the thread at the end of the red fish she has embroidered on the edge of her blue handkerchief. _Red is a Tully color,_ she reminds herself, and she runs her finger over the emblem, pleased with the fine work. 

It is the kerchief she gives to Brandon as her favor when Petyr challenges him to a duel. It is tucked into Brandon’s doublet when he slashes Petyr across the chest, and Petyr falls across the water stairs, where the current ebbs and flows blue, then pink, then red as the boy she had thought of as a younger brother gasps and clings to life. 

“Cat,” he rasps, and with his last strength, he reaches out with his shaking fingers to grasp at her gown. 

Instinctively, she pulls back as his mouth quivers, and his eyes close. 

\--

Catelyn does not have a red dream for years, for so many years that she nearly forgets of them all together, nearly convinces herself that they had not been different from normal dreams at all. Certainly, she decides, they were mere coincidences that she, with a child’s rashness, had attributed more to than was warranted. 

The next one does not come until she is carrying Bran. This pregnancy is more difficult than the ones that came before, and as the child grows, Catelyn’s sleep is often disturbed with half-formed images and quickly forgotten nightmares. But it is not until she is only two moons away from her time that the red dreams come, leaving her breathless and full of dread night after night. 

She dreams of Winterfell aflames, fires licking at the stone walls, igniting the towers, reducing what has stood for centuries to nothing more than ash and rubble. Her ears fill with the chilling melody of mortar and stone hissing and cracking. Beneath that, she can hear the long, mournful howling of a pack of wolves. The sound seems to come from everywhere, as she spins in a dizzy circle to find the source, while the flames encase her in a halo of yellow and red. She opens her mouth to cry back in response to the howls, but as she does so, smoke and soot fills her lungs, leaving her coughing and gasping for air, utterly alone. 

Catelyn always awakens then with a startled cry, sitting up in bed as best she can with her swollen belly. Each night that the dream comes, she pulls herself from the warmth and comfort of her feather mattress, hurrying down the long halls of the Keep to peer in on her babes – Robb and Sansa in their chambers, little Arya in the nursery, all sleeping peaceful and calm, their sweet countenances undisturbed by the visions that haunt their mother. 

Filled with foreboding, desperate to avoid more disaster, Catelyn places her hand upon the rough stone walls, feeling the rushing spring waters pulse beneath her touch. To ease her mind further, she looks upon each fireplace, extinguishing the few flames that she can in the rooms that are now unoccupied, making sure the ones that remain are contained. She had once loved the sweet crackling warmth that the fires provided, but now she looks upon each hearth with suspicion, her lips pressed into a firm line. 

Some nights, her wanderings will wake Ned, and she will find him sleepily awaiting her when she returns. The knowledge that all are safe in their beds, that the castle stands unharmed, gives her no peace, and a troubled frown mars her face as she slides back beneath the furs beside him. “My lady?” Ned murmurs, voice thick with sleep, rolling to his side to face her. “Are you well?” His palm lands heavily on her belly, as though to confirm the babe is still safe within. 

“I had a dream,” she whispers, and she shivers at the memory of all the other times she has said those words, at how often her premonitions have gone unheeded. “I had a dream that Winterfell burned to the ground.” 

He tugs her close with a murmured chuckle from deep in his chest, nuzzling his face against her hair with the sleepy affection he so often exhibits in the privacy of their bedchamber. “It is naught more than a bad dream,” he replies, his voice already fading as sleep begins to claim him once more. His attempts at soothing her only agitate her further. _He thinks it is a mother’s madness, but it is not. It is real,_ she thinks fiercely, with hot tears burning beneath her closed eyelids. But Ned has never put faith in signs or prophecies or visions. For all that he prays so feverishly to his gods by his weirwood, he is a man of practicality, and he would never believe in the danger that she is so certain lurks ahead. 

She checks on her children and on the hearths each night that the dream comes. As always, the knowledge that she is utterly alone in her conviction is nearly as heavy of a burden to bear as the dreams themselves.   
\--

She does not tell Robb about the last red dream, the one of the bride all in red. In Catelyn’s dream, she carries a deep red bridal cloak, and she is the one to sweep it around the faceless groom. 

_I had a dream,_ she thinks wearily, but she bites the words back. There is little use in sharing them – they have never done her any good, and have never spared her from heartbreak. 

There is little use in warning when those she tells never listen.


End file.
